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Ant Farming

Ants are amazing! They build in with artistic as well as sound engineering balance.

To find more about how to use your Ant Farm and care for your ants, read on.

To fill your ant farm, follow these steps:

Turn the farm upside down and remove the base.

Attach the base to the top of the farm as a stand

Cut off a small penny sized corner of the special sand bag

Pour sand into the farm to fill one half of the container (pour sand till it is up to the top of the section being filled.)

Replace the base to cover the filled section

Turn the container right side up -- houses on top.

Slowly add about 2/3 cup or 0.18 liter of clear drinking water. The sand should be damp throughout but not soggy.

Using the stick provided, push the cotton halfway into the sand to start tunnels.

Replace the top on the container.

Caution: Never hold or touch ants directly. You are much LARGER than they are, and may scare them. Even though small, some kinds of ants can bite or sting.

GIANT ANT FARM

TIA Toy of the Century; Parents Magazine Toy Hall of Fame; Dr. Toy Best Classic Award. BIG viewing surface, perfect for family ant watching!

To stock your farm with ants, fill out your Ant Farm Certificate for live ants as the form instructs.

You can also stock the ant farm with ants from your own backyard. Look for ants that are too big fit through the small holes in the top of the farm, and let them crawl up on a pencil, or rod that fits into the top of the ant farm. Remove the top of the farm and carefully shake or tap the stick till the ants fall in. Note: Ants move more slowly when it is cool making them easier to handle.

When your ants arrive in the mail, they will not have eaten for a few days. It is a good idea to add a couple of drops of sugared water to help them get started. You can also put the tube of ants in the refrigerator -- not the freezer -- for fifteen minutes to make the ants more easy to transfer to the ant farm.

Put the ant farm in a dark place the first night and within a day or two, the ants should be hard at work making tunnels and farming away.

Some of the ants you receive may have died in shipping. This is normal since ants live only forty days to two months, and that means that every day an ant lives is a bit like a whole year of life for you and me.

LIVING ANTHILL HABITAT

The world's first living ant habitat designed like a real ant's home! Watch and learn as these hard-working critters burrow underground to create an amazing network of subterranean tunnels, walkways and secret chambers!

Feeding: Ants love eating, but they are teeny critters. Feed your ants only two or three grains of ant food every week. The ant food provided has been scientifically blended with vitamins and minerals for the best ant health.

Watering: You should add about five drops of clear fresh drinking water for your ants with the provided dropper every two days. The sand should be kept just a bit damp, but never soggy.

Occasionally some water drops or moisture condenses inside the ant farm. This is normal and the ants will just work around it.

Fighting ants means you have ants from different colonies. If you have many dead ants within a day or two after adding more ants to your farm, it may mean you have added ants from different colonies. Ants from the same colony can be found in the same area working and living together, and they will work well together in the ant farm. Ants from different colonies instinctively disagree and will not live together in your ant farm.

ANT GEL COLONY

Originally designed for N.A.S.A. experiments! Watch ants build 3-D tunnels in nutrient rich gel! Awesome!

Warning: Direct sunlight can overheat your ant farm. Just like a car on a hot summer day, if you leave an ant farm in the sun -- even indoors -- you can give your ants heat exhaustion. Your ants will do their best at 60 to 75 degrees F, or 15 to 25 degrees C.

Respect your ants. If they are shaken or disturbed too much, they may survive long. Watch your ants for personality and intelligence traits and see if you can tell which is which. You can even give each one a name.

There are feeder ants to gather food, and worker ants to dig just to name a couple of types. Some colonies even have ants that gather seeds and let the seeds grow! Wow!

Ants are very clean and will move all their junk as well as dead ants away from their tunnels.

For further information, see Uncle Milton's Questions and Answers About Ants

ANT FARM VILLAGE

Deluxe set includes connectable ant farms, where ants roam through tubes into different habitats!

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